


Spacewalk

by Patomac



Series: Writer's Month 2020 [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Epilepsy, Gen, Illness, Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25816228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patomac/pseuds/Patomac
Summary: Callie learns to hide her mother's illness, until a spacewalk reveals it to the rest of the crew.
Series: Writer's Month 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862173
Kudos: 1
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	Spacewalk

**Author's Note:**

> For Writer's Month Day 9: Illness

The first time my mother got sick on a job, I made the mistake of calling for help. By the time the ship’s medic arrived, ten minutes later, my mother’s fit had subsided, and she was already picking up all the tools she’d dropped.

The medic wouldn’t let her finish her repair, which cost us a day and a half worth of work. Nor would she let her return to her quarters for the evening. Instead, my mother spent the night in the ship’s infirmary.

(The medic’s time was free, but the medicine she pumped my mother full of cost us 847 credits.)

After that, I learned not to involve medical crew when my mother fell ill. After Castorbouros we didn’t have the credits for expensive medication, and every ship’s store charged at least ten times the retail for even a single pill. I learned to take care of my mom by myself. When she fell on the job, I padded her head. When her hands started to shake, I massaged blood back into them. When she grew tired, I picked up her tools and finished her work myself.

It was hard, but we were making it work. Until the space walk.

Mechanics certified by the Guild could command a premium on their work. Insurance companies often gave discounts if a Guild Mechanic was onboard, precisely because they were trained to fix any part of the ship, from nav system to FTL. Most ships used bots to do the exterior repairs when out of atmo (which was basically always), but having a mechanic on standby meant that you always had someone ready to suit up, grab a welding torch, and get to work.

The _Pinta_ ’s spate of bad luck had run for three long cycles. First the primary O2 holding area had been punctured by a freak meteor strike. Second, an infected data packet had contaminated the repair bots, making them little more than high tech hockey pucks. Third, a screw on the secondary oxygen tank came loose after a particularly turbulent detachment from another ship.

Our breathable air started venting into the vacuum at 6:45 am local time. I know the time because I’d crawled into my bunk only twenty minutes earlier after a long day (week?) of following my mother around the ship to make sure she didn’t keel over.

The comm on the door panel shrieked. My mother made it to the button before I did. “Go for Starwind.”

“We need you at the lock,” the Captain’s voice rang out. “Secondary O2 is venting.”

Suddenly I was wide awake.

“Sixty seconds,” my mother said. She strapped on her toolbelt and headed for the door.

I slid out of bed. My bare feet hit the metal plating, and I winced against the cold. “Did I hear that right? The O2 is venting?”

My mother nodded. She hopped into a pair of shoes. “The primary’s still out. I need to fix it. Now.”

I’d seen my mother make impossible repairs before. Fried FTL drives, overclocked nav systems, the works. But that had been before the seizures had started. Before her hands had begun to shake after even the simplest of jobs.

“Can you fix it from the inside?” I asked. “Apply some sort of patch?”

She drew in a deep, bracing breath. “I guess we’ll find out, now won’t we?”

I followed my mother down three flights of stairs and into the belly of the ship. The primary airlock was there. A crew of three people had assembled around it.

“What’s happened?” my mother asked.

“O2 alarm is going off,” the captain said. “Secondary tank, rear hull. I’ve already cut O2 to the auxiliary areas of the ship, but we need to fix it or we’ll run out of air.”

Mom punched a few buttons on her data pad. Her face didn’t change as she reviewed the leak’s specifications. “Get everyone into the secure areas,” she said. “I’ll suit up.”

The Captain marched to the wall and to the all-quarters speaker, and my mom went for the bank of spacesuits clipped to the wall. I sidled closer to her while she changed.

“Can you do this? I mean, you’ve hardly slept, and the fits get worse when you haven’t slept.”

“I have to do this,” my mother said. She fastened the front of her suit and leaned down for a quick hug. “Don’t worry so much, Callie. You’re going to turn grey.”

She tweaked my ear and then set off for the airlock. I watched the sensors switch from pressurized to depressurized and then, finally, to open.

My mother’s voice rang out through the control panel. “Starwind to base. Door is open. I’m heading towards the leak now.”

I hugged myself and then sat down against the bulkhead to wait.

* * *

My mother relayed the stages of the repair over the open commline to the airlock. Apparently the trouble was caused by a single screw, which had come loose and then been squashed into the ship’s bulkhead. It wouldn’t have been a problem, except this time, for whatever reason, it managed to impact just the right point to rip into the secondary air.

Which sounded about right for the _Pinta_.

My mother was seventy-five percent of the way through applying a steel patch when disaster struck.

“Applying holding screw,” she said. “Holding screw--- ahh!”

My heart shot into my throat. I leapt to my feet. “Mom?”

No reply came from the other end of the commlink.

The captain had retreated to the crew mess, leaving me alone with the suit tech. She glanced at me uneasily. “Starwind, we lost you. Repeat last?”

Nothing but static echoed over the commlink.

I stalked across the floor to the control terminal. “Bring her back.”

“Are you crazy? She’s in the middle of a walk?”

“Bring her back now! She’s got a medical condition.”

The tech’s eyes went wide. “What kind of condition?”

“She has seizures,” I said. “She could be having one right now.”

The tech reached for the tether controls and then stopped.

“What are you waiting for?” I said.

“I can’t,” she said. “What if she’s seizing now? She won’t be able to hold on when the gravity kicks back on. She might be injured.”

I grabbed the roots of my hair and pulled hard. “Shit. I hadn’t thought of that.”

The tech was staring at the screen where my mother’s vitals were displayed on the chart. “If we’d known about the seizures, we wouldn’t have sent her out at all.”

“And then what would you have done about the O2?”

The tech shook her head, lost for words.

One minute passed. Then three. Then five. Finally, just when I thought I’d crack from the strain of waiting, my mother’s voice drifted in over the comm. “Screws secured. Moving to weld.”

Even through the link, she sounded weak. “Negative, negative,” the tech said. “Do not proceed with repair. Reboard immediately for emergency medical.”

A long silence echoed through the airwaves. I clutched at my throat.

“Oxygen levels will be critical in approximately three hours,” my mother said. “Request permission for continued repair.”

The tech bit down on her nail. I nudged her. “Do it!”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked. “Should I bring her back? Should I keep her out there?”

“She has to repair it,” I said. “If she doesn’t, we’ll all die.”

The tech gritted her teeth. “Proceed with repair. Then report to airlock immediately.”

“Roger. Proceeding with weld.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, my mother stepped through the airlock. A shock of red blurred the front visor of her helmet.

“Holy shit,” the tech said, and rushed to inspect her.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the tech reported my mom to the ship’s captain. What did come as a surprise was just how quickly she was replaced. The next time we set down in a port, a new mechanic, spacewalk certified, was raring and ready to go.

The Guild revoked my mother’s spacewalk certification, and our employment troubles truly began.


End file.
